Dotsero incorporation meeting draws few people

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Only four people — including himself and his wife — showed up for Josh Farmer’s Nov. 4 meeting to discuss the possibility of incorporating the town of Dotsero.

But Farmer remains undeterred in his belief that forming a new town would spur development in western Eagle County and provide property owners with better economic options than what currently exist in unincorporated Dotsero.

Farmer, the owner of All Nation’s Management Storage in Dotsero, is also a U-Haul dealer and the manager of Dotsero Self Storage. He announced plans for his Monday night meeting last week, urging his approximately 700 Dotsero neighbors to attend and discuss the pros and cons of becoming a town. The meeting drew only one Dotsero resident and none of the area’s business owners or representatives from the Hermes Group — developer of the Two Rivers project, the largest residential development in the area.

Farmer maintained that although they did not show up Monday night, he has netted support for the incorporation idea from area businessmen.

“I have been talking with the other business owners and I have about 20 of them who are not only interested, but are also interested in financing this as well.”

Financing is a large issue regarding Farmer’s incorporation proposal. He maintains the incorporation process would cost somewhere in the $120,000 range and involve getting approval from district court, writing a town charter and holding an incorporation election. As for funding the town, Farmer believes town sales tax collections would finance municipal operations.

“We don’t need that much,” Farmer said.

As Farmer sees it, Dotsero has three options — incorporate as a town, annex to Gypsum or continue as unincorporated Eagle County. He believes that incorporation is the best option, saying that annexation would require a property-by-property process and that remaining as an unincorporated area means “stymied development.”

“Everything that has been proposed here has been denied (by Eagle County),” he said.

Noting that winter is a slow season for his business, Farmer said he plans to continue his incorporation investigation. He also noted that such an action would take time, pointing to Foxfield — a 700-resident Denver-area town that incorporated in 1994.

“The whole process for Foxfield took four years,” he said “I personally have a lot of time and the interest to invest in this.”

He characterized the sparsely attended meeting Monday as a first step and said he will continue talking with neighbors and businesses to generate more interest in the incorporation proposal.